Earl An
Amateur
So I've been following P&S (mostly lurking) for a while on FB, the ModCasts, and recently here on the forum. We all know the running joke where people speak dismissively of "the poors". Or like when a friend with a MAWL "flexes" on my Dbal. We understand the context so it's funny, but I've also seen people outside the network refer to us as elitist. So I think a little clarification is in order. I want this network to grow and I'd hate for someone who can only afford a stock Glock, to think they don't belong here and miss out on the knowledge because someone held up a Roland Special and jokingly said "Stop being poor!"
The way I see it, being poor is not simply a condition of having little or no money. If someone doesn't have enough cash because they're paying off debt, saving up for something important, or experiencing a financial emergency; that's not the poor we're talking about. Poor is a symptom of ignorant or poor(see what I did there?) decision making. People have gone bankrupt after winning the lottery. If you give crackheads a million dollars, and they continue to make the same shitty decisions that led to being crackheads in the first place, they'll eventually end up back where they started. Even with money, those people are still poor. They just haven't run out of it yet.
So when we disparage the "poors", we're pointing out the pattern of defending bad, financially motivated choices, either though ignorance or willful incompetence. It's not an ad hominem attack on a person because of their bank account. This is also not to be confused with derp, even though they are closely related.
Examples of "poors" thinking:
Poor: "I need a gun right now, and this $300 pistol is "just as good" as X.
Not Poor: "I need a gun right now, and this $300 pistol is the best I can afford at the moment."
Poor: "I just can't afford a 2-day training course, so I'll watch Jedi on YouTube and shoot $60 of ammo at the range."
Not Poor: "I just can't afford a 2-day training course, so I'll forgo $60 of ammo, and do an hour online with Jedi."
Poor: "I'm gonna try to fix the feed lips on this aluminum AR magazine and use it for home defense."
Not Poor: "I'm gonna try to fix the feed lips on this aluminum AR magazine and use it for practice/malfunction drills only."
So let's keep in mind that "flexing on the poors" is really about educating people to make better decisions with their money, or at least preventing that bad information from being spread as meaningful knowledge.
The way I see it, being poor is not simply a condition of having little or no money. If someone doesn't have enough cash because they're paying off debt, saving up for something important, or experiencing a financial emergency; that's not the poor we're talking about. Poor is a symptom of ignorant or poor(see what I did there?) decision making. People have gone bankrupt after winning the lottery. If you give crackheads a million dollars, and they continue to make the same shitty decisions that led to being crackheads in the first place, they'll eventually end up back where they started. Even with money, those people are still poor. They just haven't run out of it yet.
So when we disparage the "poors", we're pointing out the pattern of defending bad, financially motivated choices, either though ignorance or willful incompetence. It's not an ad hominem attack on a person because of their bank account. This is also not to be confused with derp, even though they are closely related.
Examples of "poors" thinking:
Poor: "I need a gun right now, and this $300 pistol is "just as good" as X.
Not Poor: "I need a gun right now, and this $300 pistol is the best I can afford at the moment."
Poor: "I just can't afford a 2-day training course, so I'll watch Jedi on YouTube and shoot $60 of ammo at the range."
Not Poor: "I just can't afford a 2-day training course, so I'll forgo $60 of ammo, and do an hour online with Jedi."
Poor: "I'm gonna try to fix the feed lips on this aluminum AR magazine and use it for home defense."
Not Poor: "I'm gonna try to fix the feed lips on this aluminum AR magazine and use it for practice/malfunction drills only."
So let's keep in mind that "flexing on the poors" is really about educating people to make better decisions with their money, or at least preventing that bad information from being spread as meaningful knowledge.